Meet James, Brad and Dee Jay

What are James, Brad, and Dee Jay working on now? Well, they can't say.

James Hall, Brad Kram, and Dee Jay Randall work for Blue Castle Games in Vancouver, BC. The trio have been in the video game industry for the past 7 years. Upon graduation from the U of R in late 2001 and early 2002, all three accepted positions at Electronic Arts Canada in Vancouver. While at EA, they worked on titles such as NHL Hockey, MVP Baseball, FIFA Street, and Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. In 2005, they joined Blue Castle Games - an independent developer that creates a variety of games for the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. The company's first title, The Bigs, shipped in June of 2007 and has sold almost one million copies.

Development teams typically consist of 20 to 35 programmers and 20 to 50 artists. Almost all of the programmers have at least an undergraduate degree. Every day, video game programmers rely on the skills learned while obtaining an undergraduate degree in computer science. Video games require competence in several different areas, including artificial intelligence, animation, graphics, and networking. During the first three years of a computer science degree students lay the groundwork of programming fundamentals and are given opportunities to learn more about these advanced areas in their fourth year.

What are James, Brad, and Dee Jay working on now? Well, they can't say. Plans for upcoming titles are closely guarded secrets for video game publishers. We are looking forward to hearing more details about their upcoming projects.